Bloodsport
by Lendruel
Summary: They both have sides they can't control, so they might as well keep each other company the only way they can. Rated T for blood and violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello again.**

**Here's something new.**

For the fourth night this month, they are at each other's throats, quite literally. Biting and clawing, throwing themselves with reckless abandon, as the sounds of their warring echo through the hallway, bouncing off the rubberized walls of the training room. The sparring dummies are in splinters, there are dents in the walls, tables are snapped in half, and the two show no sign of slowing. They spin, tumbling, slamming into walls, the floor, each other, anything within reach becoming either a weapon or a target. Sometimes both. No speech, no words; only panting, animalistic snarls, broken only by the occasional ragged expulsion of breath that follows the landing of a blow. For a moment, they separate, the air between them charged with bloodlust and fire, the two of them equally bloody and battered. Both of them equally without control, grinning with sharp teeth as they circle each other. Then, a fist crashes into the side of his face, her legs are swept out from under her, and they fall together, all claws and teeth as their struggle brings them to the ground.

The first time this happened, the two had woken, bruised and aching, in the center of the war-zone that had once been the living room. Surrounded by the wreckage of the couch, its fluffy innards strewn about like snow, they had done what they could to either repair or hide the damage in shell-shocked silence. The couch had been beyond repair, and at some point one of them seemed to have thrown the other through the screen of the television. That had been a nightmare to explain to the team. After a second, similarly expensive incident, they learned to quarantine themselves to the training room or the roof when the need arose.

For once, Garfield finds himself winning. Snarling, fangs bared, he crashes into her again, ignoring the voice in the back of his mind that reminds him, mockingly, she isn't even using her powers. The voice pipes up again, as she sends him flying back against the dented wall, that he's probably lucky. He ignores it still, recovering from the blow and leaping forwards, attacking relentlessly each time she knocks him off his feet. The two of them are equally savage, but at opposite ends of the spectrum; Raven's demon is calculating, all technique and agility. His beast, on the other hand, is raw force, given form and an endless supply of energy. She can put him on the ground as many times as she likes, but he can barely feel the pain. All he has to do is outlast her, stay on his feet long enough to catch her off guard. Every other time they have fought, Garfield has found himself unconscious long before she grew tired, but not this time. This time, he can see her flagging, hear from the gasping of her breaths that her unnatural pool of stamina is finally running low. Through the blood dripping into his eyes, he sees her stagger, swaying slightly, clawed hands still raised. With bloody teeth, he grins, picking himself up once more, head cocked predatorially. She snarls again, eyes red, all four of them. The cruel grin is gone from her lips, now that she is backed into a corner. A slash of her claws, a kick to the center of his chest, ribs almost bending under the impact. The animals screaming in his head tell him to ignore the pain, tell him to welcome it. He is finally winning, for the first time, and his blood is singing, and—and she has him on his back again, her heel digging into his chest. With a frustrated growl, he thrashes, trying to throw her off, earning nothing but a two-toned laugh and a knee in his throat. She rests her weight upon him, moving her knee down enough to let him breathe.

"You lose, Gar." He looks up at her, still struggling, through a haze of blood, exhaustion, and head trauma. The words don't register at first, neither of them having spoken in the last half hour, but eventually they worm their way into his adrenaline-clouded mind. He sees her properly, sees her violet eyes, no longer flooded red. She kneels over him, one knee holding him down, her hair brushing his cheek. He pants, eyes wide, teeth still bared, staring up at her. Victorious again, her demon is satisfied. The beast, on the other hand, is clawing at his fingertips, screaming for his battered body to _get up, _get up, _bite, claw, get up, don't—_Garfield's eyes are pleading, behind the bloodlust. His beast won't let him rest until one of them is unconscious. Raven smiles down at him, gaze soft as she wipes a smear of blood from her mouth. Then, with only the slightest sign of smugness, she draws her fist back once more, and everything goes dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello again, here's chapter two, leave a review if you like! I'm thinking that I'll be swinging back and forth between past and present a little, until the backstory is fully established.**

The room is dark when Garfield wakes up, and his mouth tastes like blood and ash. With a cough, he starts to sit up, only to be halted by a searing pain in his ribs, and a gentle hand on his forehead.

"I think we might have overdone it a little, that time." The voice comes from above him, a soft murmur in the dark. His eyes follow the hand up, until they meet the violet eyes of the girl above him. As he tilts his head back in her lap to look up at her, he realizes that they are no longer in the training room: at some point, she must have relocated them to the living room, to lay him down on the couch. Aside from a few scrapes, she seems barely worse-for-wear after their most recent session. He, on the other hand, feels like a bag of broken glass and rocks.

"You think? _I _think I have a few broken ribs this time." He complains, wincing, and lifts one bruised hand to poke gingerly at his torso. "How come I'm the only one who ends up all bendy in the wrong places?" He asks, pouting up at her. She raises an eyebrow, swatting the hand away from his ribs.

"Even with your powers, and all the animals you've been, you're still only human. I'm—well. I'm not." She looks up, out the darkened windows, not meeting his eyes, and shrugs. "It takes more to hurt a demon than a person, I guess." She falls silent after this, shoulders tight. One hand traces through a lock of Garfield's hair, green on grey. He moves one hand up with a scowl, taking hers.

"Don't say that." She looks down at him, her throat feeling tight, her face carefully blank. "Don't even think it." His expression is surprisingly fierce, leaving her thrown by the conviction in his voice. He grips Raven's hand tightly, the knuckles pressing once more against his bruised cheekbone.

"I—Thanks." She mutters, looking away, slightly uncomfortable with the expression in his eyes. Garfield looks up at her for a few moments more, with an odd look on his face that Raven can't place. After a while, he simply closes his eyes, resting back against her legs with a soft sigh. His whole body is sore, literally from head to toe, and yet... Something inside him feels satisfied. One of the rare moments when the beast is either sated, or too worn out to complain. So, he stays still, quiet, as Raven's fingers brush locks of forest green hair from his face.

It wasn't always like this, between the two of them. They had always been at odds, always bickering, but it had always been harmless. It was only later in life, as their inner passengers grew harder and harder to control, that their fights began to flare larger and larger. Something about the chemistry between he and her, between his beast and her demon, made them at once drawn to each other, and set them at each other's throats. Like some unnatural courtship, their passengers seemed to take pleasure in their competition, in the way the two ended up nose to nose, fists clenched, voices raised.

The first sign of any real change had been a few weeks ago, when, in the middle of their most heated argument, Garfield had found himself snarling, fangs bared like a wolf. The growl had been inhuman, animalistic, and he had stepped closer, fingers curling. Just for a moment, before he realized what he was doing, Raven's lips had parted in a wild grin, showing teeth that surely weren't always that sharp, and her eyes.. Her eyes had grown wide with fear, the cruel sneer dropping away, but just for a moment, there had been a flicker of red there. Without a word to each other or to the rest of the team, they had backed away, and fled the scene to their respective rooms. Their teammates had stood, shell-shocked.

It had been a long night of quiet, self-directed horror for the both of them. They had sat, imitating each other unknowingly, staring at their reflections. Waiting to see red eyes, to see sharp teeth and a savage grin. Waiting to see if they were about to lose control. Neither of the two slept that night, or the next. Or the night after that. When they finally emerged from their rooms, after two days of concerned teammates knocking on their doors, then banging on their doors, then threatening to break their doors down, they were exhausted, nervous wrecks. Robin had removed them from active duty for the time being, until they could talk their problems through and "sort their shit out". So, as the other three were called away to battle, Raven and Garfield were left, in tense silence, facing each other over the kitchen table. Garfield had been the first to speak, after long minutes of silence, and the plain, childlike fear in his voice had sent a shard of ice through Raven's heart. When he finally met her eyes, his were pleading, uncertain.

"What's happening to me?" He had asked, fists clenching and unclenching, knuckles white. "What's happening to us?"

Silence had been the only response.


	3. Chapter 3

**THREE**

No candles are lit in Raven's room. Heavy, dark curtains hang closed against the night sky, and the one, barely-used light switch remains untouched. She sits, resting in the air a foot or so above her bed, eyes closed and legs crossed. Despite the quiet of the room around her, her face is anything but meditative; instead, her breathing comes hard, brows furrowed. She sways slightly in the air as her concentration wavers, like a buoy in stormy water.

"Azarath..." She begins, through gritted teeth. "Azarath... A- Azar..." Raven breaks off, breathing hard, eyes shut tight. Her fingertips curl inwards, scratching thin white lines into her thighs as her hands make fists in her lap.

_Give in. _Raven ignores the voice, whispering and smooth, like a razor wrapped in silk. She keeps her eyes shut, keeps her back straight, does everything she can to keep her mind empty.

_Give in. _She grits her teeth, the muscles in her jaw working. _You're just going to hurt yourself if you keep this up, you know. _She ignores it, stubborn, shutting the sneering, condescending voice out as best she can. Not enough.

_You can't keep this up forever, _the sing-song voice worms through her mental blockade, filling her head. Try as she might, Raven can't keep the words out. Try as she might, she can't quite convince herself that she isn't hearing them in her own voice.

* * *

On the other side of the tower, in a deadlocked room, Garfield is handling his situation poorly. The walls are bare, metallic white, and the door is a seamless panel set into one wall; He might as well have locked himself inside a safe, for all the chance he has of escape.

He stalks the room, pacing around its outer edges, panting. Resisting the urge to drop to all fours, to throw himself at the walls until they give way.  
_You can have me, but you won't use me to hurt her. _He snarls at the air, slashing a clawed hand against the steel wall. It leaves a visible scar. For a moment, Garfield is the voice in his own head, the one providing irritating commentary as his body moves of its own accord. At his words, the Beast—because the one operating Garfield's body is certainly not him—only grows more agitated, turning in circles, breathing harder. After a lifetime of being trapped, helpless, inside the changeling's body, Garfield can feel everything in the Beast's mind rejecting his surroundings, enraged by the walls of yet another cage.

* * *

For whatever reason—perhaps as a result of a lifetime of rigorous self-control above all else—Raven is having better luck. At the very least, she is still in control of her body, not yet reduced to clawing at the walls. Her mental barriers are still holding, however battered they may be.

Raven's greatest weakness, when trying to keep her emotions in check, is her empathy. She can wall off her own feelings nigh-on indefinitely—she's an adept at that, by now—but she has no guard against the emotions of others. She can sense him, now, can _feel _him, raging and alone. His pain bubbles up through the floor, boiling up around her, washing over her like a tide. It stabs holes in her mental barriers, making gaps for her emotions, her demon half, to seep through. Makes her unable to keep her mind empty. It's entirely possible that, without the empathic interference, she could keep up her defenses forever. As it stands, however, they grow weaker with every passing minute.

_This isn't sustainable, _she thinks. _I can't keep this up forever. _Another wave rocks through her, physically swaying her from her place in the air. Garfield might not know it, but he is calling to her—screaming to her—loud enough that she could follow the waves straight to him.

That thought gives her pause; Raven hadn't realized until now, but she knows where he is. If she wanted to, she could pinpoint his exact position in the tower, could make her way to him. _This, _she thinks with a kind of rising dread, _is not information I should have. _In the back of her mind, with a sharp-toothed grin, the voice disagrees wholeheartedly.


	4. Chapter 4

FOUR

Raven's legs feel heavy as they carry her down the hallway. She sways, staggering sideways against the cold, grey wall for a moment. Sweat beads on her forehead and she grits her teeth, the fingers of her right hand tightening into a fist. She fights for control with every step, but the closer she draws, the more she feels herself slipping. She finds it harder and harder to fight the haze that floods her mind, finds it harder to rationalize fighting at all.

In his self-imposed prison, Garfield pauses in his pacing. He sniffs the air, inhaling slowly and turning in a circle. _She's coming, _He—or the beast, or whatever combination the two of them make at the moment—realizes. The beast grins, slipping through to manifest as a quick twitch across Garfield's lips. He's torn, visibly, uncertain and balanced between his two halves. As he feels her approaching, the scale begins to tip, ever so slowly, away from him. Towards the beast. He backs away from the door, and settles down to wait.

* * *

They had just been starting to think that, in a way, they had the situation under control. Or, if not that, at least that they understood it. Sure, occasionally they would snap, be taken over by their other halves and attempt to tear each other apart, but at least they could usually see the incidents coming. They had thought, perhaps foolishly, that limiting their time together would keep their tempers from flaring up against each other, would keep their demons at bay. Of course, they were wrong; after two weeks of this, their other sides no longer seemed content to wait, to take over only when they could no longer restrain their emotions. The walls having been breached once, it became easier and easier for them to be torn down once more. Just as the situation finally started to become vaguely understandable, the rules were tossed aside again. That, it seems, is what led to this new development; deprived of the usual outlet of Garfield and Raven's conflicts, their other sides began to simply force their way through. Now, two weeks after the last incident, their demons are determined to have their way.

* * *

Raven walks closer, down flights of stairs, through darkened hallways. Her breath is somewhat labored, but not from the mental strain of before; now, it comes from a new source, a bubbling pool of excitement in the pit of her stomach. With every yard, the compulsion grows stronger, her control grows weaker, the demon takes over.

Garfield sits, cross-legged and leaning back against the wall, eyes closed. He taps his fingers, a metallic clicking as the nails turn to claws and then back once more. The sound echoes faintly, scattering over bare walls.

Raven's lips twitch into a smile, widening until just a hint of teeth shines through. She moves closer, closer, lifting from the floor to speed forwards faster still. Her fingers twitch.

_She's not herself, boy, _the beast murmurs, coiling within Garfield's fingertips. _Let me out, let me _in_, stop fighting—_he takes a quick, sharp breath, letting it out slowly. His claws dig into his palms until, shoving the beast back, they are fingernails again. He takes another shuddering breath, and for a moment pulls free of the beast. He rests his head back, panting, and then—three, slow knocks, driving like nails into the silence, into his head. His eyes snap open, wide and wild.

Raven grins, rapping her knuckles lightly on the cold metal of the door. Then, with careful, deliberate movements, she punches a ten-digit code into the door's keypad. With a hiss, the metal parts open, and Raven steps inside.


	5. Chapter 5

**FIVE**

With a low snarl, rising from deep in his chest and up out of his throat, Garfield raises his gaze to meet Raven's. His eyes narrow, pupils dilating, as Raven's eyes widen in visible excitement. Without a word, she thuds her fist against the wall to her right, activating another panel. The door slides shut. The action is as calculated, as deliberate as every other movement. Like a signal, the starting gun going off, it marks the beginning.

Garfield can hear his heartbeat, hammering in his chest like fists on fragile drywall. The sound echoes, filling his head, until the pounding sound of blood pumping is all he hears. It floods over him as he stands, swaying, eyes wide. It beats with the rhythm of a drummer boy, the call to war. He stands, amid the pounding in his head, rising to a painful crescendo, stares into her eyes. Maybe, her eyes—violet, dark, like deep water and silence—maybe he could still regain control. Maybe that would be enough. But when his desperate gaze meets hers, two planes of bright, liquid red flare back. Not her eyes any more. Garfield falls away, and the beast rises.

* * *

Raven's breath clouds the mirror, shrouding her reflection in white mist. The eyes are the last to go, violet headlights shining through the fog, before they too are obscured. Her hands grip the pristine, white porcelain of the sink.

She bows her head, a curtain of damp hair falling into her face. Steam rises slowly around her head as the water runs, scalding hot. Bright blurs of blood twist in the water, spilling down the drain, until all that remains are the handprints on the sides, the crimson smears on the faucet.

Raven winces as she brings her fingertips gingerly to her face, a drop of blood tumbling past her hands. They glow, soft and blue, as she traces the claw mark that trails down her pale skin of her cheekbone.

"We're going to start leaving scars," she mutters, before coughing, the sound followed shortly by a groan of pain. Her hands move to her side, the glow brightening. The sharp, stabbing pain turns to a twinge, then to nothing, and she sighs softly. _I had better go find him. _Raven runs her tongue over her lower lip, tastes blood. She leaves this mark unhealed.

* * *

Raven finds him where she always does; down by the rocks, by the water, where he always goes. The water is dark, somehow darker than the sky above.

"You know," She says, drifting to the ground behind him. "If you want to be alone, you should really find a new place to brood." He looks up, facing out over the inky waves.

"I like it here," he says quietly. He sits with his knees pulled up to his chest, long arms wrapped loosely around his legs. "You always know where to find me."

Raven doesn't respond for a long moment. "Is it alright if I stay?" She finally asks, and Garfield nods.

She pulls herself forward on the rocks, pulling her legs up to mirror him, sitting side by side. Raven's hair drifts past her face, picked up by the cool breeze that rolls off the water. The tide hisses against the rocks, black as pitch and scattered with splashes of moonlight. They sit like this for a long time, watching the moon rise into the cloudless night. Bruised and bloody, they sit together, waiting for the dawn.

* * *

**Hi! I'd love it if you took the time to leave a review if you have any thoughts about this chapter, or the story in general; it really helps me write, and I love getting feedback and criticism. This chapter nearly went a ton of different ways, and choosing between them is part of the reason it came out a little short. Luckily, I have the next chapter mostly planned out as a result.**

**-Lendruel**


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